Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella by Barbara Seranella Read Free Book Online Page A

balls of his size
twelves, seconds away from crashing into his boss and sending them
both sprawling through the doorway.
    "We've got one in the bathroom and one in the
bedroom," Cassiletti said.
    " Yeah, I know." Mace had been briefed on
the phone. Two victims, both women in their twenties. The first they
found in the bathtub, her multiple stab wounds washed free of blood.
The second was on the bed in the bedroom. She, too, had been washed,
and the twelve puncture wounds in her neck, back, and buttocks
covered with white adhesive tape. Neither the tape dispenser nor the
weapon had been found at the scene, leading the police to believe
that the killer had taken both with him. Later, at the coroner's
office, the tape would be removed a strip at a time and the torn
edges pieced together. For whatever it was worth, the order in which
the pieces of tape were torn would be re-created and cataloged. The
murders had been discovered in the early hours of the morning
following a tip from an anonymous male caller. It was the Hollywood
Division's jurisdiction, but Parker Center's Robbery Homicide
Division (RHD) had been asked to step in. RHD handled high-profile
cases: serial murders, celebrity-involved felonies.
    The killer's signature mirrored a similar unsolved
case that had crossed Mace St. John's desk when he'd first
transferred to RHD in December. For a while, the suspect was being
called "The Christmas Killer" except by one detective who
dubbed their offender "The Maytag Man" became he cleaned up
after himself. Mace had been in no mood to joke and had declared that
thereafter the murderer would only be referred to as "The
Band-Aid Killer".
    As with the previous homicide, the killer had washed
the victims' bodies postmortem. dressed the wounds, and then
positioned their bodies so that their right hands, palms down, rested
above their left breasts.
    All the women had also been sodomized. At the
December homicide scene, the forensic people had collected semen
samples and combed pubic hair, looking for whatever part of himself
the rapist/murderer might have left behind. The coroner had found no
bite marks; their absence again surprised him. Because of the degree
of overkill as evidenced by the number of stab wounds, he
characterized the murderer as impulsively sadistic. Those kinds were
usually biters.
    Any communication with the media was to be
preapproved by press relations, Captain Earl had cautioned needlessly
Actually, it was almost an insult. As if Mace had ever talked out of
school. Like he'd do anything to help a murderer—especially an
animal such as this one. But it was a tense time in the city. Mayor
Bradley was concentrating every effort to make Los Angeles appear
welcoming and safe for the upcoming 1984 Olympics. The bums had been
packed up and shipped to a tent city. Commercial traffic now ran in
the wee hours of the morning, leaving the freeways as open as Mace
had ever seen them. The last thing the city fathers wanted was
reports of a maniac killing women inside their own homes. Still
standing in the doorway of the apartment, Mace and Cassiletti each
pulled on a pair of latex surgical gloves. Mace studied the front
room.
    The apartment was filled with inexpensive furniture,
much of it dusty. A blue-and-gold silk scarf was draped over the
shade of the lamp on the small table trapped in the corner between a
couch and an armchair. The cushions weren't dented, he noted. The
zipper on the center couch cushion was facing out. The Scientific
Investigation Division photographers arrived and performed their
duties in the bathroom and the bedroom. Mace told them to document
the living room and kitchenette as well. Mace and Cassiletti waited
till the flash stopped popping, then walked into the bathroom. The
first thing Mace noticed was how the dead woman in the bathtub had a
foot draped languorously over the edge of the tub. Her eyes were
open, punctuated by dark smears of mascara under the lower lash
lines. God, she was